[No surviving envelope]

T. S.Eliot
EmilyHale
TS
B-11 Eliot House
20 March 1933

AEyre, Mary B.;a7 letter to-day from Miss Mary Eyre (air mail).1 She is quite a dear, but My how she do love to pick one’s brains! But I don’t blame her for being a bit of a vulture; I don’t suppose there is enough meat in Claremont to fill her maw. She is quite an interesting person. She says she has seen you for 2 minutes, but makes no observation.

Sometimeswritingand whether to keep a notebook;a9 I have thought of keeping a notebook; but I can’t come to the point of putting things down just for myself, or solemnly for posterity: I have to speak to somebody. ThispoetryTSE's unrecorded epigram on;a9 is the sort of thing that I would have put down in a notebook: ‘The poet wears his heart upon his sleeve. It must be added, first, that that is the last place where anybody would think of looking for it; and second, that they wouldn’t recognise it as a heart if they saw it.’ I wonder if that means anything, though it seemed rather clever when I thought of it.

YesterdayLittles, the Leon;a5Little, Eleanor (née Wheeler)Littles, the LeonLittle, Leon M.Littles, the Leon to lunch with the Leon Littles in Chestnut Hill, with Jim Clement also; got back, very sleepy, and slept; thenJames, William, Jr.and wife host TSE;a1 to dine with Mr. & Mrs Billy James2 who took me to the Chamber Concert – with a Miss Lowell who plays the fiddle – sawOsborne, Maurice Machado;a1 there allGreenes, the Copley;a4 theSluder, Ella Cochran;a2 regular guysWheelwright, John Brooksinevitably at Chamber Music Club;a2 – PickmansPickmans, theinevitably at Chamber Music Club;a4Pickman, Edward MotleyPickmans, the – SallySpencer, Theodore;b7 SedgwickSedgwick, Sarah ('Sally') Cabot;a3 – Mrs. Sluder – her daughter Mrs. Glessner – Mrs. Spalding whose son is at Milton – Mr. Copley Greene – Jack Wheelwright – Maurice Osborne3 – the Bernard Banderlog IInd – Spencer brought me back. ABach, Johann Sebastianat Chamber Music Club;a1 good performance; aStravinsky, IgorL'Histoire du soldat;a4 beautiful Bach piece, and then the Stravinsky Histoire du Soldat – unsatisfactory as a concert piece, but a beautiful performance by the drummer – justSweeney Agonistesimportance of the drummer;a5 theStravinsky, Igorinfluenced 'The Hollow Men';a2 drummer I want for Sweeney Agonistes – IStravinsky, IgorPetrouschka;a6 have'Hollow Men, The'indebted to Stravinsky;a1 a weakness for Stravinsky anyway, as The Hollow Men owes a great deal to Petrouschka, andStravinsky, IgorTSE claims affinity with Picasso and;a3 IPicasso, PabloTSE claims affinity with Stravinsky and;a1 feel that Stravinsky and I and Pablo Picasso have a good deal in common – Picasso is a funny little man, like me. AndJoyce, Jamesevening with Lewis, Vanderpyl and;b5 thenLewis, Wyndhamfamous evening with Joyce and;a3 IVanderpyl, Fritz R.;a1 think of an evening which I and James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis passed with Fritz Vanderpyl4 at 3, rue Gay-Lussac, and shortly after midnight Fritz lighting his clay pipe and saying ‘Vous, Eliot, et vous, Joyce, vous cherchez le difficile. C’est le grand defaut. It faut trouver le simple’. (Fritz’s idea of cherchant le simple was to write poems to a Polish-Jewish painter lady who had been la madonne des wagons-lit, and whom he described as ‘infiniment sensuelle’.) LewisLewis, Wyndhamremembered in Paris;a4, who had barked his shin by falling off a bicycle on a ride which we attempted from Saumur to Chinon (but never got there) and was worrying about lockjaw from the gravel, was rather distracted,5 andCros, Guy-Charles;a1 also the next morning when Vanderpyl (who wrote articles on cuisine for the Petit Parisien) had spent three hours in preparing a Salad for me and Lewis and Guy-Charles Cros (whose father invented the gramophone,6 and who claimed proprietorship in certain islands in the Mediterranean (Isles-Cros) but who was partly Danish and partly Negro); and all Lewis said was that Cros was like a little black Flea.

IOxford Movement CentenaryTSE to chair Albert Hall meeting of;a2 have got to be Chairman at the Albert Hall after all.

1.Not traced.

2.WilliamJames, William, Jr. James Jr. (1882–1961) – son of psychologist William James (brother of Henry) – American painter who worked as painting critic for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; acting director, 1930–7. His wife was Alice Rutherford Runnels James (1884–1957).

3.MauriceOsborne, Maurice Machado Machado Osborne (1886–1958), architect and engineer (Harvard 1908).

4.FritzVanderpyl, Fritz R. R. Vanderpyl (1876–1965), Belgian poet and novelist; art critic of Le Petit Parisien. TSE to Sydney Schiff, 22 Aug. 1920, with a sketch of those attending: ‘dined with Joyce in Paris … Fritz Vanderpyl, a friend of Pound and myself, was also present’ (Letters 1, 494).

5.See Paul O’Keefe, Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis (2000), 224.

6.Guy-CharlesCros, Guy-Charles Cros (1879–1956), noted poet and translator, whose father Charles Cros (1842–88) was also a poet, and an inventor. In 1877 he published an invention that he termed the ‘Paleophone’: a device for reproducing recorded sound by means of a vibrating membrane. Sadly for him, just a year later, Thomas Edison produced a working model of the cylinder-based phonograph.

Bach, Johann Sebastian, at Chamber Music Club, Busch Quartet's Brandenburg, EH sings in B Minor Mass,
Cros, Guy-Charles,

6.Guy-CharlesCros, Guy-Charles Cros (1879–1956), noted poet and translator, whose father Charles Cros (1842–88) was also a poet, and an inventor. In 1877 he published an invention that he termed the ‘Paleophone’: a device for reproducing recorded sound by means of a vibrating membrane. Sadly for him, just a year later, Thomas Edison produced a working model of the cylinder-based phonograph.

Eyre, Mary B., offers to lend TSE house, for which she receives Ariel poem, sent Sweeney Agonistes, favoured among EH's Claremont circle, poem inscribed for, TSE on, TSE reflects on New Year's Eve at, recalled,

3.MaryEyre, Mary B. B. Eyre, Professor of Psychology, lived in a pretty frame house on College Avenue, Claremont, where TSE stayed during his visit to EH at Scripps College.

Greenes, the Copley,

3.HenryGreenes, the CopleyGreene, Henry CopleyGreenes, the CopleyGreene, Rosalind Copley (née Huidekoper)Greenes, the Copley Copley Greene (1871–1951), Harvard alumnus, writer and social worker; Unitarian. He was for many years Clerk of the Boston Art Commission. His wife was Rosalind Huidekoper. The Copley Greene family was much involved with amateur theatre, musicology and various social causes.

'Hollow Men, The', indebted to Stravinsky, recited at Harvard,
James, William, Jr., and wife host TSE,

2.WilliamJames, William, Jr. James Jr. (1882–1961) – son of psychologist William James (brother of Henry) – American painter who worked as painting critic for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; acting director, 1930–7. His wife was Alice Rutherford Runnels James (1884–1957).

Joyce, James, appears suddenly in London, admired and esteemed by TSE, takes flat in Kensington, lunches with TSE at fish shop, gets on with Osbert Sitwell, GCF on, consumes TSE's morning, dines in company chez Eliot, obstinately unbusinesslike, bank-draft ordered for, indebted to Harriet Weaver, writes to TSE about daughter, his place in history, evening with Lewis, Vanderpyl and, TSE appreciates loneliness of, TSE's excuse for visiting Paris, insists on lavish Parisian dinner, on the phone to the F&F receptionist, TSE's hairdresser asks after, defended by TSE at UCD, for which TSE is attacked, qua poet, his Miltonic ear, requires two F&F directors' attention, anecdotalised by Jane Heap, part of TSE's Paris itinerary, in Paris, strolls with TSE, and David Jones, and EP's gift of shoes, his death lamented, insufficiently commemorated, esteemed by Hugh Walpole, TSE's prose selection of, Indian audience addressed on, TSE opens exhibition dedicated to, TSE on the Joyce corpus, TSE on his letters to, Anna Livia Plurabelle, Joyce's recording of, Dubliners, taught in English 26, Ulysses, modern literature undiscussable without, Harold Monro's funeral calls to mind, its true perversity, likened to Gulliver's Travels, F&F negotiating for, 'Work in Progress' (afterwards Finnegans Wake), negotiations over, conveyed to London by Jolas, 'very troublesome', new MS delivered by Madame Léon,
see also Joyces, the

1.JamesJoyce, James Joyce (1882–1941), Irish novelist, playwright, poet; author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939).

Lewis, Wyndham, EH promised copy of portrait by, indebted to Harriet Weaver, famous evening with Joyce and, remembered in Paris, apparently numbers TSE among enemies, visiting Joyce in 1920 with, asks to paint TSE, TSE sitting for, portrait shown to EH, departed for America, and the fate of TSE's portrait, one of TSE's 'group', his sketch of TSE loaned to Henry, importunes another portrait, his portraits of TSE, second portrait acquired by Magdalene, TSE views first portrait in Durban, Blasting and Bombadiering, The Lion and the Fox,

7.WyndhamLewis, Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957), painter, novelist, philosopher, critic: see Biographical Register.

Littles, the Leon, dine chez Eliot, their kind of society,
Osborne, Maurice Machado,

3.MauriceOsborne, Maurice Machado Machado Osborne (1886–1958), architect and engineer (Harvard 1908).

Oxford Movement Centenary, TSE committed to speaking at, TSE to chair Albert Hall meeting of,
Picasso, Pablo, TSE claims affinity with Stravinsky and, his Barnes Foundation paintings delight,
Pickmans, the, at Professor Woods's, host TSE at country estate, TSE takes to, inevitably at Chamber Music Club, TSE spiritually at home with,
poetry, the danger of illustrating, versus the law, as career path, as social construct, as against didacticism, as redefined by Sweeney Agonistes, TSE on his oeurvre, TSE's own reasons for writing, TSE doubts his own, TSE's unrecorded epigram on, TSE on his own, and the importance of models, relieves TSE's longing for EH, nonsense poetry, versus drama, and TSE's new drawing-desk, and theatre-going audiences, and the dissimulation of feeling, TSE on writing after long intermission, jealousy among poets, and personal experience, TSE's defended from EH's charge of 'futility', and emotion, and marriage to VHE, and varieties of audience,
Sedgwick, Sarah ('Sally') Cabot, spirits TSE from Norton lecture,
see also Professor William Ellery Sedgwicks, the
Sluder, Ella Cochran,

3.EllaSluder, Ella Cochran Cochran Sluder (1872–1951), resident of St. Louis, Missouri; widow of Dr Greenfield Sluder (1865–1928), a renowned specialist in nose and throat diseases; director of the Department of Laryngology at the Washington University Medical School. Her daughter Martha Sluder (1908–78) was married to John Jacob Glessner, Instructor in English, Harvard.

Spencer, Theodore, offers TSE suite in Eliot House, looks after TSE, shares whisky and conversation with TSE, talks poetry till late, appears deaf during first Norton lecture, hosts TSE after the first Norton lecture, and English 26, learns to tie tie from TSE, and Matthiessen co-direct Dekker, TSE shares homosexual experiences with, hails Burnt Norton, worth discussing American politics with, speaks with EH, and TSE's honorary Harvard degree, dies of heart attack,
see also Spencers, the

2.TheodoreSpencer, Theodore Spencer (1902–48), writer, poet and critic, taught at Harvard, 1927–49: see Biographical Register.

Stravinsky, Igor, diminished in TSE's admiration, influenced 'The Hollow Men', TSE claims affinity with Picasso and, L'Histoire du soldat, Perséphone, Petrouschka, Le Sacre du printemps,
Sweeney Agonistes, TSE's desire to illustrate, copy inscribed to EH, defended as poetry, recited for Signet Society, importance of the drummer, rated TSE's best by More, Hallie Flanagan's Vassar production, and TSE's Vassar visit, its characters compared to Auden's, new direction in drama, discussed with Rupert Doone, Group Theatre production, JDH on Doone's production, TSE on Doone's production, Rupert Doone explains his production, reviewed by Desmond MacCarthy, and Yeats's Mercury Theatre season, referred to as 'dance play', revival compared to Group Theatre premiere, EH taken to revival, EH's opinion on, its St. John of the Cross epigraph, TSE reflects on,
Vanderpyl, Fritz R.,

4.FritzVanderpyl, Fritz R. R. Vanderpyl (1876–1965), Belgian poet and novelist; art critic of Le Petit Parisien. TSE to Sydney Schiff, 22 Aug. 1920, with a sketch of those attending: ‘dined with Joyce in Paris … Fritz Vanderpyl, a friend of Pound and myself, was also present’ (Letters 1, 494).

Wheelwright, John Brooks, strikes TSE as pathetic, inevitably at Chamber Music Club,

9.JohnWheelwright, John Brooks Brooks Wheelwright (1897–1940), architect from Boston Brahmin background; poet; editor; socio-political activist (founder-member of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party). Author of Rock and Shells (1933), Mirrors of Venus (1938); Political Self-Portrait (1940).

writing, and routine, to EH, like talking to the deaf, development and development in the writer, and 're-creative thought', TSE's pace of working, correspondence, and Beethoven, and whether to keep a notebook, dialogue, and loving one's characters, and the necessity for reinvention, to someone as against speaking, plays written chiefly for EH, prose between poems, poetry versus prose, and originality, poetry three hours every morning, plot, and obscurity, blurbs, letters of rejection, requires periods of fruitful latency, on new typewriter, TSE's 'old Corona', the effect of war on, and reading, as taught by the book, prize-day addresses, weekly articles, concisely, from imagination, from experience, for broadcast, out of doors, rewriting old work, and public-speaking, by hand,